The present invention relates to the art of floating docks and, more particularly, to an improved deck structure for a floating dock.
Floating docks are of course well known and, generally, are comprised of a deck structure suitably secured to underlying sealed metal drums, styrofoam floats, hollow or foam filled plastic floats and the like. Examples of floating docks using hollow or cored plastic float drums and the structures of such drums are disclosed in my prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,683,833; 4,799,445; and 4,974,538 which are incorporated herein by reference. As disclosed in the earlier two of my foregoing patents, a floating dock may be comprised of a plurality of dock sections suitably interconnected to provide a floating dock assembly, and the deck structure for each dock section is comprised of a rectangular frame having side and end members of wood or metal, and decking in the form of wooden deck boards. The deck boards have opposite ends overlying and secured to the side members of the frame, whereby the frame and decking is a unitary structure. In such prior deck structures, rigid fastening of the opposite ends of the deck boards to the side members of the frame is often necessary to assure rigidity and structural integrity with respect to the deck structure. In order to provide boaters using the dock with utilities such as electricity and water, lines for the latter can be supported beneath the decking such as by an electrical raceway and/or waterlines secured to the underside of the deck boards or to the insides of the side and end members of the frame. If the frame is constructed from metal members, a wooden bump board is usually secured at least to the outer sides of the side members of the frame, and cleats are secured to the top sides of the deck boards to facilitate the tying of boats to the dock.
When it becomes necessary or desirable to access the interior of the deck structure beneath the deck boards for purposes of, for example, inspection, maintenance and/or replacement with respect to the frame components, float drums and/or utility lines, such access is both difficult and time consuming to achieve. In this respect, each of the deck boards must be removed from the frame in the area of the floating dock to be accessed, and this requires removing the individual fasteners such as screws or bolts by which the deck boards are secured to the underlying frame members. Both the difficulty and normal time required to remove such fasteners can be increased if the fasteners have rusted, and if the deck cleats span two adjacent deck boards then the cleats also have to be removed. Moreover, the deck boards have to be replaced following the inspection, maintenance or other operation necessitating access to the interior of the deck structure, and such replacement is likewise time consuming and tedious. If the utility lines are secured to the undersides of the deck boards, even more time is required because of the care which has to be taken to preclude damaging the lines.